Football and fun

Are you ready for football?Come Sunday, television viewers will be crowded around millions of TV sets for the Super Bowl XLIV commercials or the halftime show.

Some may even watch the game.

By the way, this year it's the Pittsburg Steelers vs. the Green Bay Packers in case you've been living under a rock.

Who remembers Super Bowl I on Jan. 15, 1967 with the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers?

Let's set the mood with some memorable football movies. Those movies range from inspiration to just plain fun.

Instead of watching the pregame show, have a pregame show of your own with memorable football flicks and shows.

Here are my picks:

Any Given Sunday (1999)

Any Given Sunday is a behind the scenes look at the life and death struggles of modern day gladiators and those who lead them. With a team on the brink of collapse, head coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) stirringly illuminates the meaning behind every inch of the gridiron.

Remember the Titans (2000)

Denzel Washington takes over as the head coach of one of Virginia’s first racially integrated football teams.

Rudy (1993)

Rudy has always been told that he was too small to play college football. But he is determined to overcome the odds and fulfill his dream of playing for Notre Dame. Rudy shouldn’t just be required watching at playoff parties—it should be streamed into every locker room of every team about to compete. Ever. Few scenes in sports flick history are as uplifting as the diminutive Rudy Ruettiger’s climactic sack in the final minutes.

You remember the key moment. You know the one. "RU-DY! RU-DY!"

Jerry Maguire (1996)

When a sports agent has a moral epiphany and is fired for expressing it, he decides to put his new philosophy to the test as an independent with the only athlete who stays with him. Don't miss Cuba Gooding's famed touchdown dance.

We are Marshall (2006)

When a plane crash near Huntington, W.Va., claims the lives of members of the Marshall University football team and some of its fans, the team's new coach and his surviving players try to keep the football program alive.

An uncredited Robert Patrick portrayed Marshall Coach Rick Tolley. Matthew McConaughey as Jack Lengyel came in to pickup the pieces as the new coach. Mark Oliver appearred as Ernie Salvatore, A Herald-Dispatch sportswriter who lost his life in the carnage in Wayne County.

The crash claimed the life of Gene Morehouse, the voice of Marshall. His son, Keith, makes a memorable appearance as the man who replaced him. The film is a little too close to home.

Brians's Song (1971)

The film relives the struggle with cancer by Brian Piccilo.

Coach (1989-1997)

Craig T. Nelson as Hayden Fox often fits the stereotype of dumb jock (as do his co-workers Luther H. Van Dam and Dauber Dubinski). It's sometimes difficult to say who is the funniest, Nelson, or Jerry Van Dyke as Luther. Bill Fagerbakke is convincing delivering Luther's straight man lines, if it is possible for anyone to play a straight man with Van Dyke.

The Longest Yard, 1979, and the remake in 2005.

Burt Reynolds appears in the remake as the coach while Adam Sandler reprises Reynolds role from the original.

What It Was, Was Football, (1953) is a comedy monologue by Andy Griffith about college football in North Carolina. A TV station in Raleigh, N.C., uses the monologue weekly as the pregame show for N.C. State football.

Catch the original here along with a copy of a parody that appeared in Mad Magazine.

I believe I'll have another big orange drink. I will.